Download PDF - Stillness Speaks

Of course the idea of a deluded Self is ridiculous, a cosmic joke,because the Self is always free of the mind and its content. For this reason,spiritual ignorance, is defined as that which is not. Self-Knowledge is notobtaining something you don't already have (to claim that you don't have aSelf is to claim that you don't exist), but the rediscovery of something alwayswith you by removing a confusion that isn't actually there!One lamp is not neededto illumine the light of another.A second awareness is not neededto know the Self, Pure Awareness.(28)The sun illumines everything in the world. To see it, no second sun'slight is necessary. When someone claims to know the Self 51 we areimmediately skeptical, if not downright incredulous. It's possible to know ofthe Self because It’s fame is considerable, but It can't be known with theintellect in the way a fact or a person is known. Using a flashlight to see thesun is analogous to trying to know the Self with the mind. The intellect, likea telescope, is an instrument capable of illumining objects in a field butincapable of seeing itself, much less the Self, its origin.In so far as it’s a reality, the universe is Awareness or Consciousnessarranged in several planes from gross to subtle: the outer layer, the materialworld is so dense it doesn't even appear as Awareness; the senses, subtlerthan the body and marginally less opaque, enjoy a little sentiency borrowedfrom the Subtle Body; the Subtle Body, because it’s made of chitta, 52 a formof Consciousness, and subject to the gunas 53 is still subtler; and behind theSubtle Body, at the innermost core, all-pervasive pure Awareness enlightensthe Subtle Body. No subtler awareness illumines It.In order to "know" the unknowable Self the intellect must be switchedoff or transcended - the idea behind discriminative meditation practice.When the mind is brought to stillness, (it need not remain that way more thana few moments) an awakening may occur during which the Self reveals itself.After waking up in the morning, I needn’t inquire of my wife if I’mawake. Similarly, Enlightenment is self-validating. "I and my Father areone" is the statement of a Self-aware being. Those who haven't experienced51 Or God. God is a personification of the Self according to Vedanta.52 A Sanskrit term from the Yoga philosophy meaning “mind-stuff.”53 Energies of Consciousness that color the Subtle Body. See Chapter 3 of Meditation, The Science of theSelf.42